Geometry and angst. with these two words Federico Garcia Lorca defined the two elements that overwhelm tourists on their first visit to New York City. And it is that the map of Manhattan It is the most famous grid in the world, with its eleven avenues – which run through the island from north to south – cut at right angles by 155 streets.
Contrary to what one might think a priori, its urban plan has been more than two centuries old, since we have to go back to 1811 to know its conception. It was then that Gouverneur Morris, John Rutherford y Simeon de Will they considered that the right angle was the most economical to live and to build.
At that time it was agreed that the streets would be separated from each other by about 60 meters and the avenues by a distance between 150 and 275 meters. The reason was fundamentally sanitary, with these measures they considered that the spread of epidemics could be prevented by allowing air to circulate freely between buildings.
Manhattanhenge
If the Manhattan grid were perfectly oriented to the NE, which it is not, the point at which the sun rises or sets during the solstices would be aligned with the line drawn from east to west by the streets of the island.
However, the grid is tilted almost 30 degrees to the east, a fact that means that the dates on which this gift of nature occurs are not fixed. This phenomenon is popularly known as Manhattanhenge –alluding to Stonehenge (England)- or Manhattan solstice and attracts hundreds of tourists every year. The neologism was popularized in 2002 by Neil deGrasse Tysonan astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History.
It was the fault of Hippodamus of Miletus
The grid is the most rational way to “tame” a territory. The most archaic cultures very soon abandoned the circular geometry of the houses (10,000-7,500 BC) to replace it with the rectangular one (7,500-6,000 BC), whose organization was the advance of the grid.
Hippodamus of Miletus He was a Greek architect who lived in the 5th century BC. C. At this time he is considered the father of urbanism as he was the first to establish the structure of a city based on functionality.
Hippodamus is credited with the orthogonal layout – also called, in his honour, hypodamic – in which the design of the streets of a city is structured at right angles, forming a grid. The most outstanding urban project of his with this philosophy was the urban plan of Piraeus, the port of Athens. Its acceptance was such that from then on it was the norm that was followed to shape the urban planning of the Greek polis.
Later, during the Roman Empire, architects copied the Hypodamic philosophy and used the grid extensively to found new cities, a strategy that greatly facilitated control of territory.
It is known that the Roman city was structured around two large avenues, the cardus (from N to S) and the decumanus (from E to W), with the forum located in the center.
Broadway, the exception that proves the rule
Returning to Manhattan. It is the smallest of the five New York districts and is divided into three areas: Downtown (south of 14th street), Midtown (between 14 and 59) and Uptown (north of 59). With the exception of Downtown, the cartography of the district has a hypodamic shape, although there is an avenue –Broadway- that acts as a free verse as it crosses the island from north to south obliquely. If Hippodamus of Miletus raised his head, surely he would have a lot to say about it.